links for 2009-02-03

A few people have read my article on Boxes and Arrows about transitioning into usability and sent messages asking how they can learn more. To the most recent request, I had these things to recommend to the person:
* On-the-job experience is really helpful. The #1 thing to do for yourself is tell people you’re interested in usability, that you want to do design/ia projects, and see what they say. The only way to get what you want is to ask for it! Otherwise, people can’t know what you’re looking for.

Currently we have a few problems with information and our interactions with service and product providers. Using a few examples, Scott Abel demonstrates that a service or product provider’s information use can be inefficient, overwhelming, incongruent, incompatible, invisible, and last, but not least, “dumb.”

In contrast, intelligent content enables content to serve people better and is accessible to both people and machines.